The Downside of Being Charlie

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  “No,” I say because there’s no way Charlotte could be anything but amazing.

  “Some people don’t know their faults, but I know mine. I’m reminded of them every day.” She looks toward her house. “And I know I’m not . . . enough, for you. Besides, Charlie, I don’t even really know who you are either. Sometimes I think I do, but then . . .” She sighs deeply and shakes her head like it’s too complicated to explain how screwed up I am. My face gets hotter. I wish she’d stop, but she keeps talking. “I get the feeling that there’s this part of you that you don’t let others see. And if neither of us can be ourselves around each other, then what the hell is the point? We’re like two identical puzzle pieces, but two pieces that can never fit.”

  I don’t know if Charlotte is being the sincerest she’s ever been or if she’s feeding me the biggest load of crap. But I’m pathetic because even as she sits here saying how wrong we are for each other, and even as I want to run away from what she’s saying, I can’t help thinking she’s got it all wrong. We’d be perfect for one another if she’d just give it a chance and stop reading so much into everything.

  She looks at me, and there’s that thing in her eyes that I tried to get in the pictures and couldn’t. Part of me does understand what she’s saying, but then I don’t see how telling her all about my fat self and my crazy mom and my shitty dad will make any difference.

  “Say something,” she says. But I can’t. I want to tell her I love her and that I don’t want her to ever leave me. But I think if I say those things, she’ll just dismiss it because somehow it’s wrong for me to think she’s amazing. So I say nothing. All I can do is lie in the snow and let her tell me she can’t be with me because this, being left, is what I know.

  “Don’t be mad, Charlie, please. I do care about you. I just, I mean, look what happened with Blanche and Mitch.” I can tell she’s struggling, but I don’t care because I feel like an idiot and like I’ve been given the Rubik’s Cube of break-up speeches.

  “Do you . . . are you together with him?” I ask because I figure I might as well plunge this knife in as deep as it will go.

  She sighs. “I don’t know. I mean he’s . . .” She shrugs her shoulders. “I know where I stand with him. I don’t have to try so hard with him, and at least he’s real with me. He is who he is, whether people like it or not,” she says finally.

  I hate that she’s making Mark sound so noble. Who cares if Mark is real because he’s a big dumbass? I want to tell her this and that I’ll accept who she is, and I can’t imagine her being anything but perfect, but I know she’s not and that’s okay. I want to beg her not to leave me because I’m suddenly aware these will be my last moments alone with Charlotte, and however miserable and confusing they might be, I don’t want them to end. I just want somebody here. I need somebody to stay with me.

  “Charlie,” she says as she leans over, kisses my cheek, and rests her forehead on my temple. “I’m sorry. I wish things could be different.”

  She gets up and heads back into her house. The door creaks as she opens and closes it, and I stay on the ground. I want to run after her and tell her I’ll do anything if only she’ll stay, if only she’ll love me back and let me love her. But I don’t.

  I get up and walk home. I go through the neighborhood and picture everyone put away in their little compartments, and I can’t help but wonder if the prettiest compartments are the ones trying to cover up the ugliest messes inside. I wonder what it would be like to be invisible and walk through all the compartments on the block. I wonder how many people would be locked in little rooms, hiding away.

  When I get home, Dad is actually there but on the phone in his office. I don’t know if I remembered to get rid of the pizza box. But I don’t care anymore. I trudge upstairs, pass Mom’s bedroom door, and close it. It’s easier to pretend she’s still here when the door is closed. It’s easier to pretend that nobody’s left me.

  PART THREE BLUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Here’s what I know:People aren’t who you think they are.

  Things don’t always work out the way you expected them to.

  Sometimes . . . we miss things.

  Here’s what I don’t know:

  What I’m still missing.

  I feel like I should be seeing something that I can’t see. Like I’m missing the signs or the connectors. They’re floating around right in front of me, right in front of me, but they’re invisible or maybe they’re too close. But pretty soon that last piece is going to click into place, and I’m going to step back and think, I should’ve known. But by then, it might be too late.

  I skip school the next day. Ahmed does too and we hang at my house, watching stupid shows on TV. When Dad gets home, he brings dinner. A couple of veggie subs. Ahmed and I take them up to my room, even though Dad looks a little disappointed that we don’t hang out with him.

  Ahmed is in the middle of telling me how he makes sure to hog up most of his locker between classes because then when Janie bends over him to get her books, he gets a good view down her shirt.

  “Today’s view was particularly AMAZING, brother! I mean, sure there was Tina,” he says as he rolls his eyes and dismisses the memory of her, “but these babies . . . wow!” He shakes his head and takes a bite of his sub.

  “Right,” I say, still depressed about the whole thing with Charlotte last night.

  “Okay, I know you’re bummed. But just think of all the chickies out there that you have yet to meet. Come on, she’s cute and all, but think about it. College is right around the corner, and you don’t want to be tied down in some serious high school relationship. Haven’t you watched those movies with college girls in them? They’re in a whole different league, you know? No more of this little teasing shit. That’s the real thing.” He starts pumping his hips in the air. “Oh, just like that.”

  “Dude, I really don’t want to watch you air hump right now, or ever,” I tell him.

  “All right.” He puts his sub down and throws himself on my bed. “This better?” he yells as he pumps his hips on my bed. He flops around and starts yelling, “Janie, Janie!”

  “Shut up, man. And quit doing that on my bed!”

  He laughs and sits up. “Laugh, dude, it’s not the end of the world.”

  “Dude, just stop, all right?” I say because I don’t feel like being cheered up and I don’t feel like pretending that I’m amused by Ahmed’s antics right now. I take another bite of my sandwich. The girl of my dreams just told me we can never be and still, I have no problem eating. It figures.

  “Fine,” he says, and I know he’s irritated but I don’t feel like apologizing.

  The phone rings and my stomach drops as I wonder if maybe Charlotte has had a change of heart. A few minutes later, I hear Dad’s footsteps, and he cracks open the door to my room.

  “Charlie?” he says.

  My God, it’s her! Maybe she had time to think about it. Maybe she stayed up all night thinking about how much she really does want to give me another chance.

  “I got it, Dad!” I jump up and start to head out of the room.

  “Charlie.” Dad is in the way and doesn’t move as I try to get past him.

  “Watch out, Dad,” I say, hoping she doesn’t hang up.

  “Charlie, it’s not for you.” My stomach drops. It wasn’t Charlotte. But the heavy feeling in my stomach stays because even in that millisecond before he speaks, I know whatever’s coming has to do with Mom.

  “Listen, Charlie,” Dad says. He takes a deep breath. “I . . . have to go get Mom.” His voice cracks.

  I don’t have the nerve ask him what the hell that means. Ahmed drops the last bit of his sub and scrambles to pick it up. Nobody says anything, and for a minute I think maybe Dad didn’t really say it. He must think the same thing because he says it again.

  “I have to go get Mom,” he says again but more slowly.

  The way he says it scares the shit out of me, like she’s in a body bag and s
he’s incapable of coming home herself, or if we don’t get her she’ll disappear forever and maybe she won’t have ever existed in the first place.

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  “Florida.” He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t and turns to leave.

  “I’m going,” I say. Both he and Ahmed look at me as I grab a bag and start shoving some clothes in it. He shakes his head, but I just say “I’m going” more firmly. He knows I’ve made up my mind and even if he doesn’t like it, I don’t think he’s in the mood to put up a fight.

  He nods. “I’ll make the flight arrangements.”

  During the drive to the airport, I finally ask him what I’ve been wanting to ask him because I can’t keep guessing anymore.

  “Is she alive?” I mutter. I don’t want to know, but I have to know. He doesn’t flinch when I ask him; he’s not even taken by surprise. He must have thought about it already.

  “Yes,” he says, “she’s alive.” His voice is flat, and I wonder if she really is.

  I have a thousand questions, but I’m not ready for all the answers yet. We say nothing more the rest of the ride. I don’t want to think of how Mom is broken; how she’s cracked and shattered and now we’re on our way to pick up little pieces of her.

  It’s still dark outside. The snow that fell last night has turned into a slushy gray mess. Was it just last night that it snowed, that it was pure and white and falling? Was it just last night that Charlotte was in front of her house, twirling in front of me? How we were in our fake little world. I remember her cold kiss on my cheek. And then, how I went home to my house, and upstairs to my little compartment and Dad was in his little compartment. Mom’s little compartment down the hall was empty, again. And we didn’t care. It’s strange, how we seal ourselves in. We can be right next to each other and not hear anything. We just look up and wait for snow, a smile, or a fracture, afraid of screaming for help, afraid of tearing down walls. Except Mom. Mom had been screaming and banging on the walls all this time. But we ignored her.

  Dad and I rush to catch our flight and barely make it. I don’t notice anyone or anything, and I’m glad the loud hum of the plane’s engine almost shuts out the thoughts in my head. And I don’t know how we can be landing when we only just left, but we are and there’s noise and other people as we get off, but I feel like my ears are stuffed, their voices muffled and far away.

  Soon, we’re driving a rental car, listening to the fake politeness of the GPS person.

  “Charlie,” Dad starts, “the call was from a motel clerk where your Mom has been staying for a while. He said she was in really bad shape and someone needed to come and get her.” He says it so robotically that for a minute I think his words came out of the GPS. I let this sink in for a moment.

  “How long has she been there?”

  He takes a deep breath and sighs before answering, “Over a month.”

  I think of how I saw Dad track down Mom one time and found out she was in Maine by tracking her credit card purchases.

  “Did you know?”

  I look over at Dad. He keeps his eyes on the road in front of him and doesn’t say anything.

  “Did you know?” I demand.

  He nods.

  “After everything, you didn’t . . . ?”

  “I thought she needed time. I thought she’d be okay. I didn’t know what to do. She’s always been okay.”

  I shake my head in disbelief.

  “Don’t,” he says, “I just . . .” He searches for words, but there are none.

  “How bad is she?” I ask him. He’s silent, “Dad, how bad?” I demand. I look over and he starts shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he manages finally. The uncertainty of the words mixes with the stifling artificial heat of the car and makes it hard to breath.

  We arrive at the motel and Dad pretends our headlights didn’t just flicker over a prostitute leaning into the window of some rusty old car as we turn into a no-name motel. She looks over at us with lazy eyes, before turning her attention back to the shadow in the car.

  Two guys sit outside the entrance of the motel, arguing. They look at Dad, who even in his disheveled clothing, even with his grave face, is notably out of place. They size him up, but he doesn’t look their way as we enter the motel office. It smells like mildew. The guy behind the counter is old, and he squints at us as we approach the desk.

  “Hi, uh . . . are you Jim?” Dad asks.

  “Uh-huh,” the old man says. “Who’s asking?”

  “You called me about my wife.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, she’s been holed up in that room for a couple weeks now. She’s caused a fuss ya know, yelling at people for no reason, screamin’. I tried talkin’ to her, but she just yelled and cried and carried on. But, she always ended up going back to her room so . . .” The old man squints at me and back at Dad. “Anyway, caught some good-for-nothin’ tryin’ to break into her room the other night, so I figures I’d try to track someone down. When she came here, didn’t look like she was from here, ya know what I mean?” He looks at Dad and he nods his head. “Besides, her credit card run out, ain’t workin’ anymore, and I ain’t runnin’ no shelter here, so you gonna have to take care of this first.” He shoves a bill in Dad’s face. “And best to get rollin’ outta here soon.” He keeps looking over at me and squinting. I don’t think he has teeth, but it’s hard to tell through the dirty gray beard covering his face. “Room seven,” he says after Dad pays. He throws a key in Dad’s direction and turns back to an old TV where a show is desperately fighting through the static.

  We pass the same guys on the way out, and I wonder if it was one of them that tried to break into Mom’s room. We walk quickly and I hope to God they don’t follow us.

  Five seconds later we’re in front of a door with a crooked seven on the front. Dad doesn’t seem to contemplate what’s on the other side like I do. He just knocks and calls out, “Carmen, it’s Doug.” Maybe he does this so she doesn’t get startled, maybe he half expects her to open the door with a smile and a kiss. I don’t know, but it seems weird and I almost laugh, which makes me think I must be like the biggest freak on the planet. I don’t know how you can feel like laughing and screaming at the same time, but you can.

  Dad looks at me and I swallow the crazy laughter that threatens to explode out of me. He puts the key in the keyhole, turns the knob, and opens the door.

  I’m not sure what I expected. I guess nothing would have surprised me. If Mom had actually opened the door with a smile and a kiss, maybe it would have seemed oddly normal. If she lay broken in a million pieces, scattered over the dingy motel carpet, maybe I would have just started sweeping her up. I don’t know. I was ready for anything, which is why when I see that the room is empty, I’m surprised, but not. She’s not here. And I’m worried, and I just want to see her. I have to tell her I’m sorry and that I get it, or that I’m starting to get it. But we have flown all the way here, navigated through Satan’s fucking garden, and arrived at the front of crooked number seven’s door only to find she’s not here.

  “Where is she?” I whisper.

  Dad walks in first. Only the faint light from the bathroom illuminates the dark room. I walk in behind him and the smell of sweat, piss, mold, and old food hits me immediately. Was she really staying here? Is this really where she chose to hide? How could anyone in his or her right mind stay in a place like this?

  The place would be disgusting even without the scattered take-out containers on the bed, floor, and night table, but the addition of it definitely made it worse. The bed has some clothes piled on it that I think might be Mom’s but I’m not sure.

  “This is it,” Dad says, even though I see him glancing at the number on the door that we left open. “If not, the key wouldn’t work.” He runs his hand through his hair. “What the fuck?” he says, shaking his head as he takes the place in. I’ve never seen him so completely awestruck. I didn’t know he was really capable of being shocked, not after all the
crap we’d been through with Mom.

  “Should we wait?” I ask.

  He shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, I guess, but will she come back?” he asks.

  I look around and spot her purse on the floor next to the bed. “Her purse is here,” I say, gesturing to it.

  Dad picks it up. “Wallet, too.” He starts taking out different items and throwing them on the bed; keys, cinnamon gum, a ton of receipts, a book.

  I pick up the book and study the cover. It’s old and beat up. It says: Crossing the Water by Sylvia Plath.

  “I didn’t know Mom liked poetry,” I say.

  “Yeah, she did. When we were in college, she got a poem published in the university magazine. She never wrote anything more after that, so I thought she just, you know . . .” He looks up at me and shrugs his shoulders, and I know exactly what he means. Somewhere in our attic were half-finished mosaic tables, warped pottery, badly knit beginnings of what were meant to be scarves or sweaters. All had started out with Mom’s usual over-the-top enthusiasm only to be forgotten a few days later.

  I start looking through the book as Dad pulls out more receipts. It’s riddled with notes written in the margins, most of which I can’t make out. The writing kind of scares me, though. It seems frantic and rambling and there are exclamation points screaming off the pages and several words viciously underlined, some causing small rips. I run my hands over the pages, over Mom’s writing, over a poem titled, Mirror, that was earmarked. This must have been the last one she was reading.

  “Dad?” I say and work up the nerve to ask what I’m not really sure I want to know the answer to. “Do you think Mom will be okay?”

  He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and rubs his forehead.

  “Yeah, she’ll . . .” He looks at me and then stops. We’re both struck; we’ve crossed some invisible line. We’ve never been here before. We can’t go back. He shakes his head and lets out a long sigh.